Queenbreaker: Perseverance (The Queenbreaker Trilogy Book 1) (35 page)

Windsor
Castle, Windsor

July
1533

“Pearls,
I think,” Anne drawled as languid as the midday heat seeping through the walls
of her Privy Chamber.

I
stood before Anne’s great mirror, willing my skin to stay dry. With its massive
frame of inlaid ebon wood, it took up half a wall and showed me the three
corners of the chamber behind me.

Anne’s
tailor knelt at my feet, pinning the bottom of the skirt to accommodate my
shorter stature. True to her word, Anne had set him to making over one of her
black gowns for me. I had never owned a black gown—it was too costly for
a child’s wear since we soon grew out of it. Gabrielle had one—handed
down from Mother. She’d had it the past two years and looked unlikely to
outgrow it so it would never fall to me.

Anne
and Lady Rochford sat on either side of a little table directing the work, as
Cousin Mary served as my tiring woman.
 
She pulled a long rope of creamy pearls from the least of Anne’s jewel
boxes and wound it round my neck.

“
Bien
,” Anne pronounced. “Do you have
many pretty things, Mary?”

My
eyes brushed hers in the mirror. Shadows hugged her lower lids. They’d grown
deeper and darker every day since we’d come to Windsor.

“I
have enough, madam.”

Anne’s
arch laugh called out my lie.

“If
that is true then your mother is more indulgent than I thought.” Anne raised
her finger for me to turn and show her the yellow kirtle ‘neath the skirt. “You
shall need a larger chest to house your new wardrobe.” She pointed her fan at a
polished oak chest thrice the size of mine. Her initials gleamed in gold above
the lock. Mother had nothing grander.

“I-I
am most grateful, Your Grace,” I gasped, bobbing a curtsey despite the tailor’s
fingers on my skirt.

Anne
disposed of my thanks with a cool nod. “There is no sin in good taste,” she
murmured, studying my costume.

“Suffolk
has none so it falls to you,” Lady Rochford said.

“Just
so,” Anne said, sighing. “He is still the commoner he was born. He cares
nothing for books or learned discourse. His speech is dull except when the
subject is hunting or hounds.”

“Or
whores, Your Grace,” Lady Rochford put in.

Anne
giggled. “For shame, sister.” Her sparkling eyes belied the reprimand. “Is it
still that Flemish girl he kept when his wife was alive?”

Lady
Rochford shook her head. “He handed her off to Carew for a new hunter. He had
to recount the pedigree—of the horse, not the wench, mind you—to
the King all the way
back
to Bucephalus. It took an
entire hour—and two pitchers of beer—because he knows no Greek and
less Latin.”

“He
has avoided Latin his whole life because he avoids the Church,” Anne muttered.
“He is God-fearing, but not God loving. He is like a beast of the fields in his
appetites.” She sighed again, her empty hand going to the small of her back.
“He is a blight on the court,” she muttered. “How the King could love him and
Sir Thomas More defies God’s own reckoning.”

Anne
stroked her belly with the backs of her fingernails as though she strummed a
lute. “But love him he does. It is a fact that must be borne.” Her tired eyes
settled on me. “This is what you must know of Suffolk,” she said, fingers going
still. “He has no heart but for the king. Women intrigue his senses, and if
they are wellborn or wealthy, his avarice. You must be lively in his company,
laugh, dance, game, but no wordplay. You will only reveal his small wit and he
will loathe you for it.”

As
he loathes you.

“He
is vain, impatient, coarse and lewd. Do not shrink from his filthy jokes. That
will confound him. His curiosity will compel him to keep your company. For the
rest…” the fan fluttered as she contemplated the rest, “…we must rely on his
penury to move him our way.” Anne tapped her armrest. “Do you understand your
task?”

“Yes,
madam,” I said.

Anne’s
eyes sharpened. “You do not. But that is well. He expects no intelligence in
females. Your ignorance will charm him.” Anne worked her fan, stirring enough
air to move the loose hairs at her temples.

“There
will be eyes on you at all times so have no fear of anything improper. He will
make no advances unless he is in his cups, which is likely. My lord Wiltshire
will be here and that should restrain him.”

“Like
a dog on a leash,” Lady Rochford quipped.

Anne
chuckled. “You shall wear crimson. He favors the color.”

Lady
Rochford snorted. “He likes blood.”

Anne
rolled her shoulder. “They all do,” she said through a delicate yawn. “All men
are born killers at heart.”

Windsor
Castle, Windsor

Late
July 1533

Anne’s
portrait of the Duke proved precisely true to life. He arrived half-drunk,
stinking of wet horse, and cursing his grooms for losing the buck they’d chased
from Chertsey.

Defying
his condition, he took the stairs three at a time and arrived at the Queen’s
door unwinded.

I
could not believe he was nine years older than the King. His stamina put
younger men to shame. He usually rose before dawn to hunt til dusk, foundering
horses all day long.

Perhaps
it was their shared restlessness that had made them and kept them such good
friends for so long. Neither liked stillness, but the King, at least, had
learned to tolerate it in order to conduct the business of the realm. And
produce his music. The Duke, Anne said, had no facility for it.

“He
cannot keep the time in his head, but must count it aloud like a child in
leading strings,” she’d mocked.

In
that her portrait proved partially wrong. We dined informally in the Queen’s
Presence Chamber. Suffolk and I sat to Anne’s right, Uncle Wiltshire and Lady
Rochford on her left.

The
Duke danced well enough when the music was bold and the dance
vigorous—like the
volta
.
It was the slower steps that baffled his feet. We danced one basse dance then
he quit the floor to resume drinking. I took my place beside him at table.

“You
are a fetching little thing,” Suffolk said, spewing warm ale fumes in my face.
“Like a tiny brown titmouse.”

He
showed me his large, square, handsome teeth. I showed him mine, pretending I
approved the comparison to a rodent.

“Do
you hunt, girl?” he asked then belched.

“Yes,
Your Grace,” I answered through a second cloud of putrid fumes.

His
florid face lit.

“Thank
Christ. I do my best wooing in the saddle. We ride out tomorrow at first light
and don’t return without supper.”

______________

A
downpour broke with the dawn. The hunting party huddled against the windows in
the Queen’s Presence Chamber, watching it batter and flood the courtyard below.

Mrs.
Horsman muttered at its strange arrival.

“Clear
skies every day the past month then a tempest to blow down Eden,” she said and
crossed herself. “‘Tis unnatural.”

Unnatural
or no, my heart soared with every drop that fell. Suffolk would never win me,
so why should some poor creature die a horrible, pointless death to demonstrate
his manhood?

The
Duke fumed.

“God’s
breath I’ve never seen the like!” He slapped his thick riding gloves against
his thigh. “There’s witchery in these woods or I’m a Spanish harlot.”

“Indeed,
my lord,” the Countess said, eyes widened for effect. “There’s a den of cunning
women not a mile from the castle.”

Uncle
Wiltshire frowned. “The King’s foresters are lax. They should clear the forest
every season.”

Suffolk
scowled. “I’d burn ‘em out and chase them down like the villains they are.” He
hawked and spat into a clump of rushes bunched against the wall. “If we find no
sport I may just do the King that service.”

Lady
Rochford laughed. “The Queen expects venison for supper, my lords, not a brace
of witches.”

Uncle
Wiltshire gave her a nod. “Just so, daughter. I think, Your Grace, the ladies
should wait out the rain in comfort.”

Suffolk’s
scowl lightened. “Aye, Wiltshire. They’re too soft for such work.”

Aye, we’re tender as quince jam and just
as like to melt in this deluge.

I
turned from the window and a large, heavy hand grabbed my own.

“But
not Mistress Shelton, I wager,” Suffolk said, wringing my hand so hard the
blood fled my fingertips. “She looks fit for the tiltyard.”

The
Countess tittered. “Lord John de Vere said the very same.”

“Every
gentleman says the same,” Lady Rochford cut in. “Mistress Shelton is a superb
horsewoman—Wyatt called her Artemis, Weston—“

Uncle
Wiltshire raised his hand, halting the rest of her paean. “I will chaperone my
niece, if she is willing to go.”

Suffolk
grinned at Wiltshire. “Of course she’s willing. The next Duchess of Suffolk
must love the chase. She will ride behind me.”

____________

I
had never ridden pillion behind anyone but my brothers. My arms barely reached
around the Duke’s waist. I clutched handfuls of his coat, pressed my cheek
against his broad back and prayed for a clump of deer to spring through the
gate so the day would end.

“On!”
Suffolk shouted and the horse lurched into motion. I looked up just before we
passed under the archway and glimpsed the Queen at one of the gallery’s
windows, head thrown back, laughing.

So she should. She’s not about to break
her neck in the rain.

We
rode for miles before we found the beaters. By then the rain had worked its way
through my layers. I bit my lips, trying to stop shivering.

The
rain slackened at mid-morning. The Duke called a halt and handed me down from
the saddle into my Uncle’s waiting arms. I rested against him a moment as the
blood rushed back to my legs.

“The
footing grows chancy, Boleyn,” the Duke said. “If my horse falls, I would not
take your niece with me. Bring up my mare for Mistress Shelton,” he ordered one
of his grooms.

Uncle
Wiltshire watched the groom settle me in the saddle. It was not a lady’s
saddle, so it took a little time to arrange my skirts. Suffolk’s sighs decried
the necessity.

“I
hear Mary Howard wears a man’s hose and boots to hunt. Is it true, Boleyn?”

My
uncle glanced at me before he answered. “Only in the country, Your Grace. And
only when her father is away.”

Suffolk
chuckled. “Saucy thing. I’d beat my daughters for such.” He glared at my
continued attempts to school my skirt. “But I cannot fault the sense in it.”

“Your
Grace!”

Uncle
Wiltshire’s mare startled as a mud-spattered beater ran toward us. Suffolk
waved his whip at the man.

“Fool!
You’ll spook every piece of game from here to the Marches!”

The
man slipped on the slick forest floor, landing in a half crouch beside the
Duke’s restive horse.

“Boar,
Your Grace,” the man gasped. “The biggest I’ve yet seen in these woods.”

Suffolk’s
irritation vanished. “Bring up the hounds!”

Horns
sounded, hounds bayed, and the Duke kicked his horse into a flat canter.

Uncle
Wiltshire caught my bridle a moment. “Keep up,” he shouted above the din of men
and beasts. “Be there when the Duke makes the kill. Your father says you’ve the
stomach for it.”

“Yes,
my lord,” I yelled when he did not hear my first reply.

He
released me and set his horse after Suffolk’s. I put my mare right behind him,
knowing he knew the woods as well as the Duke.

We
crested a small rise, plunged down the other side. I kicked the mare to catch
my uncle. A gloved hand snared my mare’s headstall and turned her away from the
pursuit.

“Fool!”
I shouted as I lost ground on my uncle. “Let go!”

I
raised my whip to strike the groom’s arm. He checked his horse against the
mare’s shoulder, stopping her cold and bringing us face to face.

 
   
“Never,”
John said as he took my hand, took my breath and pulled me into the forest.

Windsor
Forest, Windsor

Early
August 1533

We
said nothing until the sounds of the hunt faded and all we heard were birdsong
and raindrops striking leaves. Sunlight broke through the clouds in scattered
patches. Our horses walked side by side. John still held my hand. I gave his a
tiny, tentative squeeze. He squeezed back.

He is truly here.

“How?
How did you—
“

“You
letter said you were pining for me.”

I
tried to wrestle my hand away from his. “Not a single moment.”

John
locked his fingers with mine, laughed. “You still haven’t learned how to lie.”

“And
you can’t see truth.”

And
then our banter ran out. I counted my heartbeats.
Five,
eight, fourteen.
The damp air pressed close. We held hands until the path
turned into a narrow deer track and John took the lead.

“There’s
a pond up ahead,” he said.

“That
sounds fine.”

John
led us up the deer track to a little glade bordering a tiny pond. We tied the
horses under the shade of an ancient holly, and settled ourselves on the
weathered trunk of a downed oak. I let him pull off my shoes then made him turn
his back as I removed my stockings.

The
heat fell away from the rest of my body as my feet slid into the water. Beside
me, John sighed.

“Blessed
Virgin, it’s too hot to do anything else.”

“Take
off your coat,” I said. “Or whomever it belongs to.”

John
smiled. “A gold crown makes it mine for the day and ride back to London.”

“Don’t
talk about leaving.”

He
kicked the water, startling a hovering flock of fireflies.

“So
you do not wish to be a Duchess.”

I
rolled my eyes. “Duchess suits me fine, but not Suffolk’s.”

“Norfolk’s
old and married. Richmond’s young and unmarried.”

“And
meant for Mary Howard as you well know.”

John
shrugged. “Things change. Marriages, sometimes, do not come off.”

A
hawk cried somewhere above the trees.

“Or
betrothals,” I ventured.

John
kicked the water with both feet. “Too true. My father went through three before
he was settled with my mother. And the Lady Mary Tudor’s been betrothed at least
as many.”

“I
do not intend to be passed around like a card at the gaming table,” I vowed.

John
looked at me, amusement lighting his eyes. “So say you.”

“I
do.”

“Is
that not your father’s decision?”

“It
is mine.”

John
laughed. “You’ve grown bolder since we parted.”

I
tilted my head. “I’ve grown wiser.”

John
leaned close. “I like it.” His lips brushed mine, a probing touch. I did not
move. He took it for the permission it was and deepened his kiss. The tip of
his tongue darted against my lower lip once, then again as if knocking.

A
giggle broke my lips apart and John seized his chance. His hands came up behind
my head and he lowered me to the ground. I threw my arms around his shoulders.
His linen shirt was damp as the earth beneath me. My fingers moved to his head
twinning themselves in his thick, soft hair. His lips grew firmer, warmer.

“Wait.”
I turned my head and his lips brushed jaw.

“Why?”
he murmured against my throat.

The
hawk cried again. I fastened on the sound, drew strength from its clarity.

“Let
me up.”

His
lips left my throat. My eyes opened on his.

“I
will not be tumbled like this—like some dairy maid in the meadow.”

John’s
eyebrow edged up. “You are no dairy maid.”

My
elbow stabbed his side. “Then do not treat me as such.”

John
retreated and I pushed myself off the forest floor. Dead leaves clung to the
back of my hair. John reached for me. I rolled away from him.

“Mary—sweetheart.
Are you still…untouched?”

If
he had called me virgin, I might have kicked him.

“I
am a maiden,” I declared over the blood pounding in my ears. “As I ought to
be.”

“Well,
it is just—you’ve been so long at court—“

“Four
months,” I said. “Is that enough to make me a whore?”

“Many
girls lie with their intended before the marriage day,” John said.

“Intended?”
My throat tightened, sending my voice soaring an octave. I snatched a breath to
force it back to earth. “Are we intended?”

John’s
hand tightened on mine. “Mary…I cannot—“

I
tore my hand away. “I will not give myself for a poem. Not for a pretty ring.
Not for a title. And not for a moment’s pleasure.”

 
   
John
reared back at my tirade. “You play your cousin’s game.”

Hearing
his father’s accusation out of John’s mouth knocked the air from my lungs.

“My
honor is not a game, and if you think it so then you have none.”

He
grabbed my wrist.

“The
greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be,”
he said.

I
fixed my eyes on his. I knew Socrates too.

“My
modesty is not pretended,” I said. “Unlike your love for me.”

Before
he could deny it, I snatched my wrist out of his grasp, grabbed my stockings
and shoes from atop his coat, leapt up and ran to my horse. The mare shied as I
caught her bridle. John’s hand came down atop mine, stopping me from untying
her.

“Mary,
I’m sorry—I’m out of sorts, out of words. I missed you.” His lips lost
their way a moment. “I-I feared that the promise of a dukedom might change your
heart.”

“So,
you think me fickle? Inconstant?” I snapped.

John
lowered his eyes. “I think you ambitious.”

“If
that were so, I would not be here.”

His
eyes rose. Shame and hope comingled in his look.

“And
Socrates is wrong,” I declared. “The only way to live with honor is to be what
we truly are.”

John
tugged the diamond stud glittering in his earlobe. “So says the girl who has
dazzled Weston and Wyatt and a dozen gentlemen beside. Did you make them fall
in love with you because you loved them?”

“
Touch
é
, my lord,” I
murmured. “But Pass-the-Time has naught to do with love. It is just art and
entertainment, and—and I am done with it because I love you.”

The
instant I said it, my anger and courage dissolved. My heart delivered three
staggering blows to my breastbone then leapt to a frantic
volta
, jumping into my throat
again and again until I almost gagged. I dug my nails against the inside of my
wrist to no effect.

If you faint he will throw you across a
horse and deliver you like a sack of millet for the Queen’s abuse and
everyone’s ridicule.

“At
last.” John’s sigh touched my forehead. His hands slid from my neck to my jaw
to my cheeks, drawing down the blood that stained them. “At last Mary Shelton
has said she loves me.”

Just
as on the bowling green, he set his lips quick and sure against their target.
He pursued the kiss, kneading away the tiny resistance in my lips, stroking
away the same in my neck til my head fell back into his hand. My hand opened,
my shoes and stockings fell. His kiss dove deeper and deeper til we both ran
short of air, but still he did not stop and I did not want him to.

Kiss me til the world’s ending. Kiss me
til--

A
sudden, frenzied shout shattered the thought. We broke apart as three blown
horses slid to a stop almost on top of us. My mare screamed. She tore loose of
the tree and ran headlong back up the deer track.

John fell to his knee
,
head down
.

I
looked up into the ashen, but stern face of the Earl of Northumberland. Two
grooms flanked him, one bearing the banner of his house. I fell to a knee
beside John.

He will not remember
meHewillnotremembermeHewillnotremembermeHe

“Michael,
Peter, fetch Mistress Shelton’s horse.” The grooms kicked their horses and
plunged after her.

“Mistress
Shelton,” the Earl’s grave voice called me to my feet.

“Good
day to you, my lord,” I heard myself say as though we greeted each other within
civilized walls. “My mare was overwhelmed by the heat. My groom found this
pond…” The Earl’s cold stare froze my tongue.

He
had grown thinner since our first meeting three months ago. His color remained
pasty, eyelids almost translucent. And that aura of remoteness still hung about
his bloodshot eyes.

“My
grooms will soon return,” the Earl said. “Find your feet, my lord de Vere.”

John
shrugged off his servile pose. He stood, head high, left hand on the pommel of
his sword.

“You
came upon us so quietly, my lord Northumberland. Was it witchery or luck?” John
said, grinning his reckless grin.
 

A
thin smile broke the Earl’s frown.

“Lathered
horses in need of water. No more. And you?”

John
shrugged. “As Mistress Shelton has said. The heat.”

The
Earl glanced at me. “That heat must be cooled, my lord, or it will ruin you.”

John
laughed. “As you were, my lord?”

I
gasped as Northumberland’s face shut like the Tower gates, firm and final.

“Mistress
Shelton. Come here.”

Again,
his solemn voice compelled my obedience. He held out his hand, I took it and
was instantly pulled up before him in the saddle.

“Mistress
Shelton’s belongings, if you please, my lord.”

John
didn’t move.

“Now,
my lord.”

John’s
eyes never left the Earl as he retrieved my shoes and stockings. He handed them
up to me. His fingers brushed mine—a pathetic farewell, but all we could
steal under Northumberland’s eye.

“What
will you do, my lord?” John asked in such a quiet voice, I knew his boldness
was spent.

The
Earl turned his horse’s head back the way they had come. “What I must,” he said
and kicked the animal to a gallop.

______________

The
Earl allowed me a moment in sight of the castle to put on my stockings and
shoes before we rode through the gatehouse. He lowered me down and turned his
head without my asking.

“If
it please you, my lord, I would like to walk the rest of the way.”

The
Earl’s horse stamped a forefoot.

“I’m
sure Lord John is safely down the road back to London by now, mistress,” he
said. “No one will chase him.”

“Then—then
you will speak nothing to the Queen?”

The
Earl’s dull eyes flashed. “Not I. Your frightened doe-eyed face will betray
you.” He held out his gloved hand. “Come along, Mistress Shelton, you’ve
delayed me long enough.”

He
swung me up again, this time behind him. I slid my arms around his waist and
found my fingers. He had half Suffolk’s girth.

Two
yeomen saluted the Earl as we clattered through the gatehouse and to the
stables. The groom who took the Earl’s horse reported that the Duke of
Suffolk’s party had not yet returned.

“That
is well for you,” the Earl said as we went up to the Queen’s apartments. “He’ll
kill something and return in good humor.”

As
we entered the Watching Chamber, Mark Smeaton caught my eye. He mingled with
several men dressed in the sober dark robes of law clerks. Resplenent in a
scarlet coat and cap, he looked like a cuckoo in nest of wrens.

Joan’s
eyes lit as she saw me enter behind the Earl. She dodged Bess’s hand and ran to
her uncle.

“My
lord!” she cried, falling to a knee.

The
Earl’s step slowed. He glanced down at her bowed head, but did not stop.

“Lady
Joan,” he said and kept on for the Presence Chamber door. Joan’s bent shoulders
trembled.

My
own feet tangled: one bent on following the Earl to see if he truly meant to
keep my secret, the other hesitant to follow the man who’d just cut his own
blood. And more than that, he’d cut Joan.

But
the Presence Chamber door opened, and Anne’s fulsome French laugh reached out
and snared me.

“I’m
sorry,” I whispered, too soft for Joan’s hearing and hurried after the Earl.

Mrs.
Horsman gave me a sidelong look as she shut the door behind me.

I
smoothed the hair away from my face then knelt as Lady Rochford announced the
Earl.